The LOUD STUPID STUFF in Our Inboxes
By Beth Quinn
I continue to be astonished by imbeciles who think they have something of value to contribute to the national dialogue.
Why, I don’t know. I should be used to them by now. George Bush, the former imbecile-in-chief, gave this crowd a sense of legitimacy and now they won’t shut up. Anyone with a computer and a set of falsehoods upon which to base a wrong-headed opinion can clutter up our e-mail inboxes with LOUD STUPID STUFF.
I’ve recently been informed by e-mail that:
- Our president is working to make laws against blogging. It would be a felony.
- Our president wasn’t born in the good old US of A.
- Our president wants to send the terrorists in Gitmo to live in Kansas. (Note to terrorists: Don’t go to Kansas! It’s a very flat state and you will be recognized a mile away. My Italian cousins live in Kansas, and one of them won her school’s minority scholarship, so if Italians are that much of a minority in Kansas, you would definitely stand out like a sore thumb!)
This week, though, I’ve received the lengthiest and most comprehensive bit of lunacy yet. It’s a page-by-page “analysis” of the 1,000-page House health-care reform bill, which proves that Our President can’t wait to get the US of A turned into a Socialist State fast enough, taking away our freedoms in the process, including our freedom to blog and giving free health-care to immigrants!
It’s hard to say who originated this “analysis,” but Fox News is partially responsible for giving birth to most of the nation’s misinformation. After all, when a “news” announcement is followed with a question mark (Will the government determine who will be euthanized and when?), it kind of passes for the truth.
For some reason, these anti-health-care reform folks are suddenly real taken with our current system of health care, which is something most of them used to complain about. Now that the not-born-in-the-good-old-US-of-A-president wants to change it, they want to hang onto it – and with some strange reasoning.
They think this foolish president of ours suddenly wants us to pay for health-care for the poor. (Note to the stupid people: We already do, just not terribly efficiently).
They are suddenly big fans of private health insurance companies, which have our best interest at heart. (Another note to the stupid people: No they don’t, but any fairness you experience is due to government regulation).
And they want the government to stay away from their Medicare. (This is getting tedious, but another note to the stupid people: Medicare IS a government insurance program and it’s actually run very well except for the prescription drug part that Bush messed with to the great advantage of the pharmaceutical companies.)
Happily, a reader named Sandy Holtz, who also received this chain e-mail analysis of the health-care bill, sent me a link to a site called politifact.com. This site, which is run by the St. Petersburg Times, is non-partisan and is intended to sort out fact vs. fiction in Washington. It’s a good site to bookmark because it does responsible things like keep a report card on Obama’s campaign promises.
It also sorts out fact vs. fiction in chain e-mail like the health-care “analysis.” You might find politifact’s analysis of the “analysis” interesting. (Bottom line: Most of it falls into the category of “Liar, liar, pants on fire!”)
In case you missed it, though, the following are some of the “facts” about health-care reform efforts that are being e-mailed around by Americans who are proud of their ignorance:
- Health insurance will be provided to all non-citizens including illegals.
- No lawsuits allowed.
- Special needs people will be restricted. Off to the glue factory.
- Government sets doctor salaries.
- All illegals are exempt from taxes.
- Government determines what will be in wills and durable powers of attorney.
- All marriage and family counseling will be provided by government.
(On that last point? I’d like to recommend that the government tests IQ before allowing people to breed, too.)
Beth can be reached at beth@zestoforange.com
Tags: Beth Quinn
August 6th, 2009 at 10:56 am
Hi Beth –
You missed my favorite fact: FOX news reported that Obama Democrats want to tailor the US health care reform package to mirror the Canadian health care plan. Do Americans know that the Canadian government has a plan to withhold critical health care for all people over 65 years old? This is a form of government euthanasia to reduce long term health care benefits, since most health care costs are incurred by older people. Canadian doctors and medical facilities are at a premium, and people must get in line for heart transplants, cancer treatments, hip replacements, etc. Luckily most folks die before they can get their treatment, so Canadian health care costs are being successfully contained.
When I passed this information on to my Canadian step-daughter, she just shrugged and said luckily most older folks volunteer to go out on the ice floes at the right time. No problem, except that with global warming it’s getting harder to find the ice floes.
Lee Luce
Warwick, NY
August 6th, 2009 at 1:46 pm
A common theme this week seems to be the best ways to censor/silence those expressing views with which we do not agree and who wrap them in misinformation and/or untruths.
Makes we wonder if the next step is to censor those expressing views with which we do not agree … period.
The untruths they tell are generally accepted by readers too busy and/or too lazy to learn the truth. So I wonder if they are not as much of a problem as the untruthsayers.
But I am reluctant to clamp down on anyone’s First Amendment rights, especially after we just endured eight years of an Administration for whom such a clamp down was preferred policy.
It reminds me of an exchange found in Robert Bolt’s “A Man for All Seasons.”
Future son-in-law Will Roper tells Sir Thomas More that he would cut down all the laws in England to silence his wrongful critics, including the Devil.
More responds “And when the last law was down, and the Devil turned round on you, where would you hide, Roper, the laws all being flat? This country’s planted thick with laws from coast to coast. Man’s law not God’s. And if you cut them down … d’you really think you could stand upright in the winds that would blow then? Yes, I’d give the Devil benefit of the law, for my own safety’s sake.”
And for our renewed ability to speak our opinions, yes: I would allow unfettered the untruths told by those with whom we disagree. That’s what spam filters are for.
August 13th, 2009 at 1:44 pm
ACK! My spell check and I missed two boo-boos. Sorry about that.